Persona 4: Return of a Leader
by M222J
Summary: Minato is freed from the great seal and now spending the year in Inaba, but with strange murders going around can he and his new friend find the killer? do not own persona.
1. Chapter 1

How long has it been, days, weeks, months, years from the great seal Minato could not tell how much time has passed since he sacrificed himself to prevent the Fall. His mind kept wandering to his friends he made during his time at Gekkoukan High and SEES. Despite being the seal he felt power flowing through him and had suspected that Nyx had something to do with it but she had been quiet during the entire time he had been there, and that what had Minato worried. Fate also decided to have a twisted sense of humour as just after he left his body, Minato regained his memories that he lost since the death of his parent on Moonlight Bridge. He would never see his grandfather or younger sister again. Just then he sensed a presence and it was not human malice trying to get to nyx or Thanatos who for some reason acted as the seal's guardian.

Elizabeth was humming a merry tune as she walked through the encompassing darkness around her. She had found him after all this time. A year of searching was all it took too. A year of dark solitude, whispered nothings, and loneliness had finally led her to him.

She stopped her humming as she came to stop in front of a large golden gate, with eyes spinning madly and looking everywhere at once. A large statue stood in front of it. It was truly magnificent. Crafted from the very soul of the Wild Card.

Stepping forward, she stopped moving when a sword lunged out of the darkness, slicing right past her head. Slowly, a familiar figure emerged from the darkness, and she let a small smile grace her lips.

"Pharos...Or should I call you Thanatos? You are a loyal one, to stay by him when he is fading away." she said, looking at the persona. "I've come to realise him." She felt calmness fill her before it left as the seal gave a mourning sound, looking at the seal she continued. "They all miss you dearly."

Thanatos stepped back, sheathing his sword. A quick sense of curiousness filled her. "They're all doing fine. None have forgotten what you've done, and are doing all they can to make it easier for you."

Silence overlapped the darkness again, and she stepped up to the statue. "Your seal is not perfect, did you know that?"

Another emotion rushed through her.

"I'm not lying. They believed that your consciousness faded away. It hasn't. You thought you'd have to be constantly aware of what was happening for the seal to function. You just made it weaker." She held a hand up, as if to touch the statue, before Thanatos drew his sword and placed it at her neck. "You let him guard this place, when you told him that he could've gone on." She faced the embodiment of Death. "You're admirable, Thanatos. Guarding him despite the fact you don't have to." Turning back to the seal she continued. "Your essence has been absorbing Nyx's powers, and before you ask no you will not become her avatar. You only need a small amount of power to keep the seal functional. You can be free." Not waiting for a response Elizabeth began the ritual to remove his soul from the seal and replace it with a small part of his power.

A few minutes later, a gasp broke the silence of the darkness, followed by a large cracking sound and then all was silent again. The first thing he knew when he woken up was that his body was stiff and by the looks of his surroundings he was in a hospital.

Mitsuru Kirijo was in her office sorting out documents regarding her grandfather's experiments; normally she would do this from inside the Kirijo group but decided that it would be best to hire a private detective to study them. Of course he agreed to keep it to himself and just wanted to know what happened to his grandson as she learned went missing and was presumed died when the shadows went on a rampage after escaping the labs. Sighing she leaned back in her char in thought, today was April 3rd, 2011, it had been just a year since that final battle and Minato's death, so much had changed in fact after the meeting she would have with Seta Shirogane she was going to visit his grave. Her thoughts were cut off by the phone ringing, picking it up she saw it came from the hospital not understanding why they were calling her answered it as she listened her face became one of shock. "Thank you I'll be there soon." Putting the phone down snapping out of her shock told her secretary that she was going to the hospital and inform Shirogane that the meeting would have to wait went to her motorbike and headed straight to the hospital with one thought on her mind. _'It can't be.'_

Once arriving at the hospital she rushed through the corridors until she reached the room the receptionist gave her, inside on the bed closest to the window was someone she thought would never see again.

Minato heard the door open so moved his head slowly towards it and a smile came to his face at the shocked look on the person's face. "It's been awhile Sempai." Mitsuru started walking towards the bed and looked like she was seeing a ghost. "Arisato-san?" She asked uncertain at what she was seeing. Minato started to explain to her what he could remember from the great seal and how only the members of SEES knows that he did die, but to everyone else he was in a coma for the past year. Just as he was about to tell her about Nyx the door opened again and in came a man in his sixties but Minato recognised him immediately and so did Mitsuru for different reasons.

"Shirogane-san, I didn't know you were here." The man just smiled at her.

"Well I went to your office but they said that you..." He stopped talking with widened eyes when he noticed Minato and Minato had the same expression on his face as Seta. "Minato?" He asked with hope in his voice and Mitsuru wondered how a famous detective knew her team mate but what Minato said next shocked her again to the core. "Grandfather?" Almost Immediately Seta was at Minato's side with tears of joy coming down his face. "All these years I thought you were dead."

"Grandfather..." Minato started but was cut off when Seta raised his hand.

"Please Minato, tell me why you did not come home after the Accident." At this point he was almost begging and seeing her friend struggling she decided to help out.

"After the accident Minato-san lost his memory." She informed the worried man, and as much as it was a shock to him, he did seem relieved that Minato did not abandon him.

"By the way Kirjio-san, how do you know my grandson?" Minato answered for her.

"She was my sempai at Gekkoukan High." Seta began to chuckle.

"Looks like we have lots to talk about, Minato." he told him and Minato just nodded his head. Then a thought came to the older man's mind before looking at Minato. "With what you have been through you could use a break how about going to Inaba for a year." If there was one thing Minato knew was that when his grandfather makes a suggestion, you will most likely do just that even if you do not want to and nodded. Seta smiled before turning back to Mitsuru as an idea came to mind. "I will have my contacts arrange for records of Minato graduation before the end of the day." She told him as if Minato was going to relax without working too much it would be easier plus by now if none of this had happened he would be finished school anyway. Nothing else was said as she made her way to the door to give the two sometime alone, just before reaching the door Minato called out. "Sempai, could you tell the others and get my headphones." With a nod she left while thinking. _'Some things never change.'_ And headed to call the others as Minato told his grandfather about his time at school.

The former members of SEES were at the moment panicking, they had come to the crematory to pay respects to their leader and friend only to find his grave was no longer there just as Akihiko was about to call Mitsuru he saw her approaching. Junpei seemed to see her as well as he rushed towards her. "Dude, have yu' seen this, his grave is missing!" and at this point completely freaked out but Mitsuru looked like it was yesterday's news. Waiting until everyone was near her she began to speak. "Iori the reason that there is no grave is because it was not there in the first place." This got her a lot of confused looks so she continued. "To all but us, Minato had been in a coma for the past year." Everyone realised what she meant and began celebrating and Yukari noticed something odd about what Mitsuru said. "Had as in past tense." She asked and Mitsuru smiled a little. "Yes, he woke up earlier today, I'm going to head back and gather his things, I would appreciate some help." All of them nodded as they started to collect Minato's things as Mitsuru informed them about what she had found out.


	2. Chapter 2

Minato and his friends were saying their goodbyes before the train to Inaba arrive. As much as it was probably not needed he had his evoker, weapon and SEES armband with him, it was more out of habit than possible danger if only he knew, he also had his mp3 player back which to his friends was not much of a surprise, the day Minato was without his headphones is the day pigs will fly. Not ever going to happen. Minato was realised from hospital little over a week ago, before his grandfather left he informed him that Naoto was fine but could not get in contact because she was too busy with investigating. He was sad yeas but at the same time happy for his little sister. With a final goodbye and promise to stay in touch walked onto the train and turned his music player on.

A couple of hours later he arrived in the small town, it was a lot different to port island but that was properly because it was a huge city over there. Minato decided that before going to cheek in to the local but famous inn as it will be a couple of days before his small house could be moved into which was bought by his grandfather, to have a look around and find the food stores as he will definitely need to make a trip there to keep alive. As he found the store called Junes, he noticed three teens that seemed about a year or two younger than him heading inside the store in a rush. If he had seen this three years ago he would have shrugged it off and keep walking, now however he could not help but feel suspicious and before he knew it was following them. As he followed he noticed that they were heading to the electrics department then he saw something that even he would think would be imposable, they went inside one of the flat screen TV. After a minute of thought decided to see if he could go in after them and to his surprise it worked.

After arriving in the TV world which looked like a studio if he could see through this fog let his senses take over at he went after the teens, but as he ran he could not help but sense shadows thanks to the power Nyx 'gave' him. The surroundings changed to what looked like the insides of a castle, when he rushed through an open door he noticed five figures, one was a boy with silver hair, and another boy how was brunette, a bear mascot, and the last two looked identical brunette girls. They appeared to notice him as the silver haired boy turned his head slightly. "Who are you?" He asked and just before Minato could open his mouth one of the girls spook.

"**Chie is so kind, huh? What a joke." **"Oh man… Is that…?" Yosuke started.

"It's just like with Yosuke." Teddie said in awe. "She lost control over her suppressed self. Now it's a Shadow!" This immediately got Minato's attention, if this was a shadow then could that mean these teens are persona users?

"**Are we talking about THAT Yukiko? She says I'm protecting her? She says she's worthless! Hehehe! That's how it should be, right?**

"What… What're you saying? Chie said, shocked.

"**Yukiko's sooo good looking… sooo fair skinned… sooo feminine…" **Shadow Chie went on.

"**Yukiko knows the score. She can't do anything if I'm not around. I'm better than her… much, much better!"**

"No! I've never thought that!" Chie yelled.

"W-what're we gonna do?" Yosuke said.

"We need to protect Chie" Yuu answered.

"We need to protect Chie-chan right now!" Teddie said. They all ran forward in an attempt to stop Chie from going too far as Minato got ready his one handed sword.

"Allow me to help." He offered which Yuu accepted but still slightly suspicious.

"N-No, don't come near me!" Chie yelled, turning to the others.

"**I'm the one that can't do anything alone…I can't win as a girl, let alone as a person… I'm pathetic." **The Shadow continued to taunt her. **"But Yukiko… She depends on me. That's why she's my friend… I'll never loosen my grip on her."**

"No… that's not how I think of her…"

"**So, you're gonna turn your back and deny me again?"**

"Shut up! You're… You're not me!"

With those words, Chie was knocked back unconscious while Shadow Chie transformed. It resembled some kind of figure that wore bright yellow clothing and it sat upon humanoid-looking figure as if it was better than it. It had some whip action going on too.

"**I am a Shadow… The true self… What do you guys think you're doing? Trying to defend the 'real' me? Then you're going to pay the price!"**

"Izanagi!"

"Jiraiya!"

Both Yosuke and Yuu summoned their respective Personas and proceeded with the beat down. Izanagi cast Zio and JIraiya cast Garu on it. Garu was the most helpful since it knocked the Shadow down and they took this chance to double team it; bashing it with their weap-metal objects a multitude of times. The Shadow cast Green Wall to protect its weakness from Yosuke. It cast a Mazio, which hit both of them, but knocked Yosuke down.

"Yosuke, guard if it casts Mazio again!" Yuu ordered Yosuke. He nodded.

Yuu had Izanagi weaken its defenses with Rakunda and had Yosuke attack it. With Yosuke's Garu attacks, they were able to defeat it in no time.

Minato was watching the persona users while carrying Chie away and placed next to the wall, it was clear to him that despite then getting the upper hand in the fight that they just awoke to their powers recently and were still green compared to Minato before the fall. He was so busy watching that he barely notice the shadow change its target to him. He moved out of the way but still got hit by a whip, sending him to the ground and the sound of metal clanking. Looking up he saw his evoker on the ground as slowly got back up and picked it up.

A familiar person formed in front of him.

"You can still do it right?"He said making his hand look like a gun and putting it at his temple. "Can you pull the trigger." The person had fully materialized. It was Ryoji. This startled everyone, he appeared out of thin air after all. Minato pulled out the Evoker and slowly raised it up.

"If you had that this entire time, why did you not help us?" Yousuke yelled.

"It's not meant for shooting Shadows." He replied raised it to his temple. "I can do."

"Dude, calm down! Suicide is not the answer." Yuu yelled.

"Per…son…a!" Minato pulled the trigger and the sound of shattering glass could be heard.

**Thou art I and I am thou. From the sea of thy soul I come. I am Orpheus, master of strings.**

"Orpheus, Bash!" Minato commanded and everyone else could just watch as Orpheus' attack along with their own personas' attack finished the shadow off.

"**Nooo!**_"_ the shadow dissipates and returns to normal, but it just silently watched them.

Chie got back up, "ugh…What happened…What's the matter, got nothing to say anymore?" She asked the shadow.

"It's ok Chie." Yousuke says.

"But…" She tries to say something.

"We all have many faces." Souji said.

"He's right you know." Minato said.

"Yeah…I kinda get it now. You are me." Chie told the shadow. "A side I tried to ignore. But you are still a part of me." The shadow nods and turns into a yellow persona. Chie falls to her knees and Minato start to feel the effects of this place. It was decided that they would come back later and headed back to the real world were Yuu wanted some answers from this stranger.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi, everyone. I'm sorry that I have not updated any of my stories for months but I just had not found the time to write them. I'll try to update this story at least once a month but I'm not giving any promises. Anyway enjoy chapter 3**

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Minato followed the four after they all introduced themselves back to the studio where he landed after following the three teens through the flat screen television. It was at this point the question came up in his mind; how do we get out of this place? While Minato was thinking over what he has seen, Yuu, Chie, Yosuke and Teddie were having their own conversation.

"I...I'm feeling even worse than the last time I was here..." Chie told the three while swaying slightly to keep balanced and was clearly worn out. "My head feels like it's gonna split open...Are you guys alright?"

"It's thanks to these." Yuu informed her, while pointing to the glasses he was wearing and watching the blue haired teen out of the corner of his eye, while he did help them defeat Chie's shadow he did not know why he was here or why he shot himself to summon a persona. Minato on the other hand just ignored the look and focused on the present situation and most likely explain things later. He noticed that both boys were wearing pairs of glasses and wondered what they are for. His mind was going over all possibilities for what the glasses did to help them with his detective instincts that came with being around his grandfather in his childhood. Yosuke seemed to realise that Chie or Minato, who he almost forgotten about were not wearing any glasses.

"That's right, neither of you are wearing the glasses." Chie at that point looked from Yuu to Yosuke and noticing the glasses for the first time. "Oh yeah... what's with the glasses? Did your eyesight go bad?" Yosuke looked at her and sweat dropped. Minato was wondering what Chie was on about he felt fine, in fact Minato didn't seem to be suffering from any side effects at all other, he could even see through the fog, mind you not as good as with the glasses but better than an ordinary person. Then again he wouldn't consider himself normal.

"Man... You didn't notice until now? How panicked were you?" At this point Teddie, who had been quiet until now decided to speck.

"Tum de dummm! I got two pairs ready for Chie-chan and Minato-san, too." He gave them both a pair of glasses; yellow for Chie and blue for Minato

"Whoa! What the-?! This is awesome! It's like the fog doesn't exists!" And she was right Minato thought as soon as he tried the glasses on, the fog simply vanished like it was never there in the first place. He was cut off his thoughts as Yuu turned to face him.

"How long have you known of this place and how?"

"Actually, until today." Minato as ever answered short and to the point like he did during his time at SEES. "As to how: followed you." The investigation team looked at each other, was it that obvious they were doing something. Yosuke decided to ask a question of his own. "If you only been to this place once than how did you know how to use persona? And what's with shooting yourself?!"

"To answer your second question, the gun I used is called an Evoker and it allows me to summon my persona. To answer the other question I know how to use persona because i have done it before for years." Minato began to explain before being cut off by Teddie.

"How can you Minato-san? Yuu-sensei said that persona cannot exist in your world." Sensei? Minato would have ask about it later.

"To understand I guess I'll have to tell you the situation at the time of me awakening my potential. If I told you that there was more than 24 hours in a day you think I had gone made, but the truth was that there was a 25th hour, hidden and most people will not know it is occurring apart from those with the potential."

"When you say potential do you mean personas?" Yuu asked and Minato nodded.

"Yes, those with the ability to summon a persona are unaffected and are aware of what if going on around them; we called the period the Dark Hour. During the dark hour persona users could summon their personas, however we were not the only ones around at this time, shadows are also active."

"Wait did you just say that there are shadows are in our world too?" Yosuke asked worried about having them in their world too.

"Not anymore, they were sealed away along with the dark hour. A group of us from my previous school were part of a group called the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad or SEES for short. On the outside we just your average school club but on the inside we were a group of persona users dedicated to fighting shadows. Every day we would go around defeating shadows, eventually we managed to find the reasons behind the shadows and seal it away. It resulted in no more dark hour and I was in a coma for a year for unknown reasons." After finishing his explanation he seemed to gain Yuu's trust but it was obvious that he had more questions but let them slide for now. As it appeared to Minato that Yuu was the leader of the team and by gaining the his and the others trust for him to figure out what was going on, letting go of some events was a small price to pay, but Minato had to ask the question that had been on his mind for a while "Just one question... How do we get back to our world exactly?" The answer to his question appeared in the form of television sets piled onto each other. Minato followed the teens through the televisions which he thought was a strange way to travel to their world to the 'T.V.' world.

Coming out of the flat screen television in Junes, Minato agreed to meet up with them after they finish school the next day. Finding his way to the inn and getting a room for the next few nights, Minato sighed as he got to his room and decided to get a new mobile phone as his hardly works anymore with the battery only lasting for enough time to make a call. His time in Inaba will not be one for relaxing that his grandfather had wanted, that much was certain.


	4. Chapter 4

April 17th, 2011 night

A vehicle drove itself into the depths of the fog; the headlights were shining through the darkness, which only led to even more darkness. It was like a loop. The vehicle just passed through the same thick fog as it kept driving. Inside the vehicle Minato opened his eyes to find himself in a new but familiar room. It was like what you would find in a limo and it was all covered in blue. In front of him were three figures, the one on the left was Elizabeth, the woman that released him from the great seal, on the right was a woman with long, blonde hair tied back that looked like she was Elizabeth's sister, and in the centre who was looking down was an old man had white hair on the back of his head, and an unusually lengthy nose. He had pointy ears, and was wearing two white gloves.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room," said the old man sitting on the other end of the room. His eyes opened up, and he lifted his head to look at the blue haired boy. "Or should I say welcome back."

"Igor." Minato acknowledged the older man who had provided assistance in his time with SEES. Igor gestured to the woman on his right.

"This is Margaret. She is a resident of this place, just like myself and Elizabeth's sister."

"My name is Margaret," she said, "I am here to help another guest on his journey." Margaret gave her attention back to Igor, having nothing left to say, apparently.

"It appears that your destiny was not to end at the seal, I did not think I would see you again which means that you are about to take on another journey."

"You mean something linked with Yuu?" Minato asked knowing he will most likely get the answer he wants, but was worth a try anyway.

"Perhaps, perhaps not." Was all Igor told the blue haired boy before gesturing to the sheet of paper on the table between them.

"Just like before, you need to sign this contract that states that you will take full responsibility for all your actions." Minato said nothing and just took the pen on the table before writing 'Shirogane Minato' on the dotted line at the bottom of the page.

"Just as I had done last time you were a guest will help you on your journey along with Elizabeth." At this said woman smiled at the thought of helping Minato again and perhaps going into the real world with him again. "The velvet key you have will still work, however as you might have noticed that your personas are smaller in number and in strength as well." Minato frowned slightly and nodded at hearing this, he had noticed when fighting Chie's shadow that Orpheus was not a strong as he was before the fall and he could not feel the connection with some of this persona as well.

"Do not be alarmed they will return to you in time, as you had been gone from this world for a year the bonds you had have weakened to the extent that persona cannot be formed."

"That makes sense" Minato agreed. "Do you know anything about what Nyx has done?" He knew from Elizabeth that he was not turning into her Avatar but that did little to lighten his worries. Before he got his answer he felt himself starting to wake up in the real world.

"We shall discuses that at another date." Was all Minato heard before darkness claimed him.

April 18th, 2011

Minato woke up on the bright Monday morning, going over everything that had happened the previous day and leave what happened in the velvet room to later. A group of newly awakened persona users and a world that can be accessed though a TV with shadows lurking around. Even with all he had seen in SEES, he had never heard of a TV world, was it possible that it was linked to the two recent murders in Inaba? Just before leaving for Inaba, he had heard there had been reports about two murders which, the course of death baffled the police as they as far as reports go no known course of death. Now that he thought about it there was a person missing right now that the police believe to be connected, Yukiko Amagi the daughter of the Amagi Inn's owner, the Inn he was currently staying at and from what he heard from Chie's shadow, someone that the three younger teenagers know. After getting changed into his blue and white t-shirt and jeans with his trusty headphones left the inn, and went toward Junes to see if they had any phones, as long as it worked Minato would be fine with it.

About an hour later, Minato walked out of the store with a new phone in hand with his old sim card in it. Looking at the time there was still a couple of hours before the younger teenagers will be out of the local school so Minato decided now was the best time to inform Mitsuru about this development, no doubt it would be best to say it sooner rather than later. Minato could not help but shudder slightly out of the thought of his sempei's 'executions' which he only heard from his former teammate and sempei Akihiko Sanada who had known Mitsuru the longest. Both of them plus Junpei and Ryoji narrowly escaped one during a visit to Tokyo which all four agreed never to talk about again. Dialling the number, he held it up against his ear for the person on the other side answer.

"Mitsuru Kirijo speaking."

"Hello sempei."

"Arisato-san, is there something you want to ask?" Was Mitsuru a mind reader? Minato could not help but wonder. Despite knowing that Arisato was not his last name (it was found out through Minato's grandfather that Arisato was his mother's maiden name) kept calling him that out a force of habit and Minato really didn't mind. And so he began to explain what he had seen and found out while Mitsuru listened silently on the other side. Once he finished Mitsuru was still silent for a minute, and Minato knew that she was thinking that facts over, after all they thought that they had gotten rid of the shadows with the Dark Hour and the Abyss, but it looked like they had learned a tiny part about the shadows. Finally Mitsuru spoke.

"Arisato-san, for now I want you to follow these persona users while I get the group together back here and see if we can access this 'TV world' if not we will see you in Inaba."

"Alright, I'll keep you informed if anything happens." Minato promised her before he hung up the call and started to walk around the area to familiarise himself with the area.


End file.
